A t this point we were feeling quite a bit more flush than we had been the day before, so we planned on doing some shopping. During breakfast, I scanned the morning paper, where I found mention of some of our previous days work (the drunk being "attacked" by the sewer entrance). We also got accosted by a man handing out fliers for a rally for the church of Sylvania that day in the town square. Glug seemed quite offended by this, and decided to go off and do something about it. Meanwhile, the rest of us headed off to go shopping. We visited the town armor and weapon shop, and Neu Gai got himself outfitted with a nice suit of chainmail and a shield (with a little financial help from me), and we all picked up bows and arrows. I did a little casing of the joint, and decided I'd be out of my mind to try and do anything there until I was much more skillful.
We headed back to the inn to see if Glug was back yet. There was still no sign of Glug, but there was a message for me from the Guild. I guess I hadn't been quite prompt enough about reporting my recent earnings. Geez, it was only yesterday, but they don't cut much slack. I wandered off to see the bosses right hand man, with Bernina in tow. If she's going to operate in town, she better get herself enlisted in the Guild, and the sooner the better. The Guild was actually pretty reasonable this time, and only took a little over 10% off the top. Which still left me with a nice buffer despite the money I lent Neu. They took a little more off of Bernina by way of initiation fees and all that, and he had a few words with her I didn't try to overhear. Listening at doors is all well and good, but in some places it will get your ears cut off. This is one of them.
I sent Bernina back to the inn, and went off to do a little research. I figured if anyone had a clue where to look for kobolds, shriekers, and fire beetles, the Eaters of Wisdom would. Well, I figured wrong, but they at least had some ideas who I should ask. On there advice I wandered over to the traders guild to check on reports coming in from the caravans. We were in luck. A river boat had reported being accosted by kobolds not too long before as it passed through a stretch of river a couple days journey from here. This sounded pretty promising to me, so I inquired into the cost of the trip down there. It seemed pretty pricey, so I didn't book passage then. Maybe we'd be better off walking. I had less luck getting info about the other creatures. All anyone could suggest was looking in a cave somewhere. Weeeee. I could have guessed that myself.
We all reconvened for lunch, and got to hear about Glug's exciting morning. He'd apparently wandered from tavern to brothel to gaming room, trying to get together folks to counter to the rally for righteousness in the town square. It hadn't been a big success. He'd blown almost all his share of the earnings paying outrageous prices to hire some harlots, a band, and some drinking buddies, and then crashed the rally. He tried to pass out drinks, but hadn't brought enough glasses, and his hired ladies had balked at trying to seduce the high priest of Sylvania. He'd managed to cause quite a disturbance, enough so that he'd attracted the notice of the town guard, but I don't think he won a lot of converts.
After a bit of discussion, we decided to travel overland to the area where the kobolds had been spotted. At this point, a stranger presented himself to us, saying he'd overheard our conversation. He offered to be our guide on the way there, claiming to be skilled in woodland ways and in tracking creatures. We were definitely suspicious of this, as he didn't want to be paid, but Glug checked him out and he at least wasn't evil. Of course, I'm not evil, and I'd lure someone into a trap without a second thought. Well, maybe a second thought, but probably not a third one. We gave it some thought, and decided to take Chicot up on his offer. We'd be careful at first, of course, but it turns out he's also trying to gain experience in the ways of the world, and would much rather be with a group than on his own. Can't say as I blame him. Once I've tossed my spell for the day I'm largely a sitting duck. That'll change, and the bow is a welcome addition, but I like having Neu around to hide behind, and Glug around to patch us up when we get hurt. Since it was getting a bit late by this time, we decided to spend one more night in town, so we could get an early start. I talked the innkeeper into not charging us for the night, since we'd so massively overpaid the night before. We expected an uneventful night, but it turned out to be anything but. In the middle of the night we were awakened by shouts of "FIRE", and the smell of smoke coming under the door. We spent some frantic minutes lowering our stuff and ourselves out the window, and then the stronger guys in the party went off to help fight the flames. The fire proved to strong however, and the inn was soon declared a total loss. We found another inn, and dragged our selves and our stuff over there. We reeked of smoke, but they gave us a room anyway. It seems there has been quite an epidemic of fires in the area of late. Perhaps we'll have to look into this at some point.
We started off the next day, heading north out of town , and then curving east and south once we were on the correct side of the river. The first two days passed quietly, but the second night we found our camp under attack. Flights of arrows were raining down on the camp, seemingly without much aim, but I was hit in any event. We quickly spread out and moved towards the source of the arrows. It turned out to be a band of starving men, who'd turned to banditry to get food. Neu Gai quickly started taking them apart with his sword, with Chicot rushing up to help. Of course he's human, so he was mostly blind in the dark, but once we was close enough he was better than they were. After getting my arrow wound healed by Glug, I managed to sleep a couple of them, and the fighters took care of the rest. In a couple minutes we had a half dozen starving prisoners. Great. I've been hungry, so I know where these guys were coming from, and I didn't really want to kill them. In fact, Glug was kind hearted enough to summon up some food for them, which they dug into like animals. We confiscated their weapons, and waited until morning to decide what to do.
In the end, we decided to just take most of their weapons and let them go. A few monks passed by during breakfast, and we considered putting the men in their care, but Glug had some weird feelings about them, so we passed on that idea. Time to hit the road again.
On to Journal Three